U.N. Appeals for More Funds To Relieve Hunger in Bosnia

By PAUL LEWIS,

Published: April 14, 1993

UNITED NATIONS, April 13—
The United Nations issued an emergency appeal for more food for Bosnia and Herzegovina today as five Security Council members raised the flag of revolt against the attempt by the United States and Russia to delay new sanctions against Serbia.

In Geneva, Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote to aid-giving governments expressing "deep alarm" at the shortage of food for the 2.8 million people now dependent on United Nations rations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

She told these governments that there had been "no response" to her appeal last month for $817 million to cover relief needs for the rest of the year in the former Yugoslavia. Less Than Half of Needed Food

Mrs. Ogata, who coordinates the relief efforts there, said she currently had less than half of the food needed for Bosnia and Herzegovina between now and June. As a result she is diverting funds from health, sanitation and shelter programs to meet the more pressing needs of the hungry.

While Mrs. Ogata sought to keep the United Nations relief program alive in Bosnia, five members of the Security Council began planning a revolt they promised on Monday when they strongly attacked the Clinton Administration and Russia for seeking to delay new sanctions against Serbia to help President Boris N. Yeltsin's chances in the April 25 referendum on who rules Russia.

The five are Venezuela, Cape Verde and three Muslim countries -- Pakistan, Morocco and Djibouti.

They are trying to win enough support on the 15-member Council to gain a 9-vote majority. That would enable them to win procedural motions forcing an immediate vote on a new sanctions resolution that has been accepted in principle by all Council members except Russia.

President Yeltsin would then face a difficult choice between angering Russian nationalists at home on the referendum's eve by voting to punish the Serbs, their fellow Orthodox Christians, or coming out publicly in Serbia's defense just after the brutal shelling of Srebrenica and Sarajevo on Monday by vetoing the new sanctions. Shelling Angers Washington

The shelling of Srebrenica has particularly angered the Clinton Administration, diplomats here say, because Washington thought Moscow had promised to persuade the Serbs not to attack the beleaguered Muslim town as part of an agreement last weekend on delaying the sanctions vote until after the referendum.

Britain, France and Spain, the three European Community members on the Council, have gone along with the Russia and the United States, though only reluctantly.

"We have to do something now," Venezuela's United Nations representative, Diego Arria, said today. "What guarantee do we have Russia and America won't say they want a further delay after the referendum to let Yeltsin consolidate his position?"

Diplomats say the United States and Russia plan to appeal to Serbia later this week to use its influence with Bosnian Serbs to persuade them to sign the peace plan prepared by Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen, the mediators, and already accepted by the leaders of Bosnia's Croats and Muslims.

But the omens are scarcely encouraging. After visiting President Milosevic of Bosnia last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly I. Churkin of Russia said he was bringing back new proposals that would make the Vance-Owen plan more acceptable to the Bosnian Serbs. But on Monday Mr. Vance and Lord Owen told the Council that the Russian changes were based on longstanding Serbian territorial demands unacceptable to the other ethnic factions.

Diplomats say Mr. Vance and Lord Owen believe that the only hope of shifting the Serbian position lies in rapidly applying new sanctions, especially those banning shipment of goods through Yugoslavia and the freezing of foreign Yugoslav assets.

Chart/Map: "Balkan Update" The NATO force policing the United Nations ban on flights over BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA reported no violators during its first day of operations as about 30 warplanes flew sorties over the former Yugoslav republic, said a spokesman at the operation's command center at VICENZA, ITALY. In GENEVA, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees appealed to Western governments to donate food for Bosnia, saying current supplies will run out within days for millions of people. About 650 people arrived in TUZLA aboard United Nations trucks after fleeing SREBRENICA, where Serbian shelling killed more than 50 people on Monday. In SARAJEVO, senior United Nations officials harshly condemned the attack. "Those firing the guns at Srebrenica knew that the town was packed with many thousands of displaced people, mainly women and children," one senior official said. In PARIS, the French Defense Minister confirmed that Lieut. Gen. Philippe Morillon would soon be replaced as the commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia. And in WASHINGTON, the United States released its seventh report on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, again cataloguing a horrifying series of mass murders, rapes and torture mostly attributed to Bosnian Serbs.